The Bruins won their 50th game of the season Tuesday night against the Atlantic Division’s top team, Brad Marchand broke his scoring drought and Boston proved it can keep pace with the division’s best in the Florida Panthers.
But even with all the positives and the Bruins on their way to the Stanley Cup Playoffs next week, there still are two glaring issues that need to be cleaned up sooner rather than later.
The power play is in the midst of its worst stretch of the season after going 0-for-3 in Tuesday’s win, extending it to 0-for-36. Some thought getting David Pastrnak back from injury would help some of those woes but that hasn’t been the case.
It’s likely Boston will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the playoffs — a team the B’s struggled mightily against this season getting outscored 16-1 in three games — and it will be a series the Bruins must take advantage of every opportunity given to them.
There’s no real rhyme or reason why the power play is struggling. They just can’t seem to buy a goal right now.
“That first power play of the game you want to be sharp,” Taylor Hall told reporters after the game, per team-provided video. “I just don’t think we have the confidence right now to be that way. We need maybe a couple of practice days to get our game in order. It’s all five of us on that unit need to help each other out. You’re going to go through that in spurts throughout the season so that’s a real focal point we’ll work on before playoffs start.”
Hall does think the Bruins will figure things out before they begin their run for the Cup.
“If we can get pucks back, retrieve pucks after shots then our power play’s great. If we’re one and done and we’re clearing it after every shot on goal, it’s really hard to get momentum that way,” Hall said. “I think we’ll figure it out. We’re too good. There are too good of players on that unit, especially that first unit, so we’ll get it figured out.”
The second glaring issue is the fact the Bruins continue to give up goals in the final seconds of a period. That trend continued when Sam Reinhart tied the game for Florida with just 0.6 seconds left in the opening period.
Fortunately, the Bruins’ defense was all over the Panthers and jumped back on top in the first five minutes of the second and never relinquished the lead.
If Boston does indeed face Carolina in Round 1 it will need to do everything in its power to not allow a last-second goal to happen.
There were plenty of positives to take from Tuesday’s game, there’s no doubt about that, and the defense certainly proved it can step up and help shut down a strong offensive team. They say defense wins you games, but if the Bruins can figure out the power play and keep their opponents off the board as the clock winds down, then they’re going to be a very dangerous team heading into the playoffs.
